Lantos endorses Speier to succeed him

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, who announced this month that he’s suffering from esophageal cancer and so will retire from Congress at the end of this current, 14th term, today endorsed former state Senator Jackie Speier to succeed him.

“Jackie Speier has been working on behalf of the people of Peninsula and San Francisco for decades, and she is our best candidate for the United States Congress,” Lantos said in a news release. “From her earliest days as a staff member for the late Leo Ryan to the offices she has held at the local and state levels, Jackie has always been a first-class public servant who has made the community’s most pressing priorities her own. With her impressive record of achievement and her unique life experience, Jackie will bring to Washington all the heart and soul, muscle and grit that makes for an effective new member of the House.”

Speier, who ran a close but unsuccessful race for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 2006 and was termed out of the Legislature later that year, has been polling and lining up donors for this race for almost a year, and formally declared her candidacy Sunday. State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who succeeded Speier in that state Senate seat, announced Monday he won’t run against her for Lantos’.

Josh Richman

Josh Richman covers state and national politics for the Bay Area News Group.
A New York City native, he earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and reported for the Express-Times of Easton, Pa. for five years before coming to the Oakland Tribune and ANG Newspapers in 1997.
He is a frequent guest on KQED Channel 9’s “This Week in Northern California;” a proud father; an Eagle Scout; a somewhat skilled player of low-stakes poker; a rather good cook; a firm believer in the use of semicolons; and an unabashed political junkie who will never, EVER seek elected office.